Supreme Court takes controversial Measure 11 case

The Oregon Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal by a woman who claims that the 75-month mandatory minimum sentence she received on a sex abuse conviction was cruel and unusual punishment.

Veronica Lee Rodriguez, 28, was convicted in 2005 of sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy she met while working at the Hillsboro Boys & Girls Club. But the judge said that the Measure 11 sentence of more than 6 years was too harsh under the circumstances.

Rodriguez served about a year in prison. She was released in October 2006.

Late last year, the Oregon Court of Appeals reversed, noting that the jury found Rodriguez "acted with a sexual purpose" so the more severe punishment would not "shock the moral sense of all reasonable persons as to what is right and proper."

The Rodriquez case has become a rallying cry for some who feel that Measure 11, the 1994 initiative that set mandatory minimum sentences for crimes involving violence and sex, should be changed.

The court agreed to take the Rodriguez appeal and a similar case to explain how lower courts should evaluate whether a mandatory minimum sentence was cruel and unusual.

A Washington County jury found Rodriguez guilty of one count of first-degree sexual abuse for pulling a boy's head into her breasts while rubbing his temples and running her fingers through his hair in the downtown Hillsboro club's snack room.

Rodriguez acknowledged that she had broken club rules by letting the boy come over to her apartment, taking him on overnight trips and giving him rides in her car. But she and the boy testified that there was nothing sexual their holding hands, hugging, kissing or writing letters expressing love.

The jury was unable to reach a decision on charge of second-degree sexual abuse that stemmed from an allegation that Rodriguez let the boy fondle her breasts in the boys' restroom at the club.